Rohingya Religious Sites under Threat of Border Police

Maungdaw: Border Guard Police (BGP) vandalized a religious school and contaminated a pond near the mosque in a village of Maungdaw township on 15th April 2017, reports our correspondents.

A bunch of 40-50 BGP at 09: 00 AM entered the Borfara area of Shilhali village in Maungdaw Township and started contaminating a huge pond which was located near the mosque.

Since 09:00 AM till 08:00 PM in the evening they continuously did fishing in the pond, where hardly any fish existed. It was a pond with clean water which people used to take bathe or Wodhu (cleaning before prayer).

Vandalized religious school in Shilhali village of Maungdaw Township.

For almost 11 hours 30-40 BGP went down the pond and continued to contaminate until water in the pond started to smell and became ineligible for human use.

Later they stayed in a religious school nearby and vandalized it by braking its fences and wooden materials. There they even burnt some of the wooden blocks.

“They simply contaminated the pond and vandalized the school just to stop our religious practices, which they have been continuously doing” explains a Rohingya in worrying tone.

Later the next day villagers fixed a water pump in the Mosque area which was not working for a long time. Villagers collected different parts from other tube wells and fixed it so that at least they can perform the prayer.

Vandalizing religious structures is a deep and long run genocidal tool that have been going on since decades in silence. In recent wave of pre-planned attack almost 80% of Rohingya’s religious structures have been vandalized completely in northern Arakan (Rakhine) state.